Union Budget aimed at fiscal consolidation: Pranab

Kolkata: Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said the 2012-13 Budget was placed with a view of fiscal consolidation, moderation of inflation and bringing back India to a higher trajectory of sustainable growth.

"The Union Budget of 2012-13 is a massive exercise in the reining in of fiscal, revenue and current account deficits while controlling inflation," he said at an interactive session at the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kolkata.

Maintaining of the trajectory of growth upwards around 7.6 per cent is also a principal objective, he said.

Pranab Mukherjee said the Budget was placed with a view of fiscal consolidation, moderation of inflation and bringing back India to a higher trajectory of sustainable growth.

"Keeping the issue of unpredictability of the global economy in mind one needs to realise that the Union government is now confronted with the huge task of controlling subsidies and cutting down on wasteful expenditure and borrowings," Mukherjee emphasised.

The plan to non-plan ratio is still somewhat involuntarily highly skewed in favour of the latter leaving the former very little or no scope to manoeuvre with.

While the proposed debt to GDP ratio is pegged at 45.5 per cent from last year's 50.1, realistic projections have also been made to the reducing of subsidies to below 2 per cent of GDP and a further low to 1.7 per cent in next three years.

Even in a situation when the world economy is virtually on a tailspin for the past couple of years, Indian economy has mostly tried to keep itself insulated from such volatility and excesses, he said.

Networking for the proposed GST is likely to go off soon and once the system is in place, it will immensely benefit the state coffers, he added.

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